Children Literature Mysteries

When Lewis Barnavelt, an orphan, comes to stay with his Uncle Jonathan, he expects to meet an ordinary person. But he is wrong. Uncle Jonathan and his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Zimmermann, are both witches! Lewis is thrilled. At first, watching magic is enough. Then Lewis experiments with magic himself and unknowingly resurrects the former owner of the house: a woman named Serenna Izard. It seems that Serenna and her husband built a timepiece into the walls - a clock that could obliterate humankind. And only the Barnavelts can stop it!

Walter the Cat is a star, but is he too famous for his own good? The Boxcar Children must find out who's trying to ruin this cat's career!

W. H. Beck's highly anticipated debut promises to delight young listeners with an imaginative tale about a rat who refuses to be judged by his appearance. Malcolm the rat loves the attention he gets as a pet at McKenna School. That' s where he meets the Midnight Academy, a secret society of classroom pets who've pledged to keep the students safe. The trouble is, rats have a bad reputation, so when their iguana leader is kidnapped, the Academy suspects Malcolm.

The British underworld is controlled by gangs. When two of them start a turf war, violence explodes on to the streets. The police need information fast, and James Adams has the contacts to infiltrate the most dangerous gang of all. He works for Cherub. Cherubs are trained professionals, aged between 10 and 17. They exist because criminals never suspect that kids are spying on them. For official purposes, these children do not exist.

Someone has tried to kill the French president. How many snipers can shoot from three-quarters of a mile with total confidence? John Kott—a U.S. Army marksman gone bad—is one of them. After fifteen years in prison, he’s out . . . and there’s a G8 summit coming up, packed with enough world leaders to tempt any assassin.

After leaving Lockwood & Co. at the end of The Hollow Boy, Lucy is a freelance operative hiring herself out to agencies that value her ever-improving skills. One day she is pleasantly surprised by a visit from Lockwood, who tells her he needs a good Listener for a tough assignment. Penelope Fittes, the leader of the giant Fittes Agency, wants them - and only them - to locate and remove the Source for the legendary Brixton Cannibal.

Three complete stories in one collection! Includes The Great Bicycle Race Mystery, The Mystery of the Wild Ponies, and The Mystery in the Computer Game.

Two brothers. One, top FBI Agent Aloysius Pendergast. The other, Diogenes, a brilliant and twisted criminal. An undying hatred between them. Now, a perfect crime. And the ultimate challenge: Stop me if you can.

Once Amy and Dan Cahill's choice was simple - take a million dollars or the first of 39 Clues that lead to the source of unimaginable power. Now it's clear that the hunt for Clues is bigger than anything that Amy and Dan could ever have imagined.

In the land of moss, magnolias, and bayous, ghost stories suffuse the landscape like mist on a moonlit swamp. Swamp ghosts, hot-tempered villains and tricksters once lived there, and live on today in such blood-chilling stories as the six in this collection.

King, Kayla, and Grandma find a dog who has lost his human family. What does Kayla know? This dog doesn't have a collar or any tags. He can sit, lie down, and shake hands. No one around here knows who he is. What does King know? The dog's family is staying at a campground. Can they figure out who he is and where his family is?

When young Henry Thorne is kidnapped and held prisoner in a remote farmhouse surrounded by miles of forest, he finds himself connecting with a strange force living in the woods—using that bond to wreak havoc against his captors. Unknown to the boy, however, is that this ancient being has its own reasons for wanting the interlopers gone—there is something hidden beneath the house, tucked away in the dark, damp root cellar . . . waiting for its return.

A bizarre chain of events begins when 16 unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing's will. And though no one knows why the eccentric, game-loving millionaire has chosen a virtual stranger - and a possible murderer - to inherit his vast fortune, one thing's for sure: Sam Westing may be dead...but that won't stop him from playing one last game!

On a foggy night in Amsterdam, a man falls from a rooftop to the wet pavement below. It's Archibald McQuinn, the notorious cat burglar, and he's dying. As sirens wail in the distance, Archie manages to get out two last words to his young son, March: "Find jewels." But March learns that his father is not talking about hidden loot. He's talking about Jules, the twin sister March never knew he had. No sooner than the two find each other, they're picked up by the police and sent to the world's worst orphanage. It's not hard time, but it feels like it.

It's 1915, and sixteen-year-old Lora Jones is finishing up her first year as a charity student at Iverson, a prestigious, gothic boarding school on England's southern coast. While she's always felt different from everyone around her, now she finally knows why: She is a drákon, a rare, enchanted being with astonishing magical abilities. As war hits Britain's shores, and Lora reels from an unimaginable loss, she finds that her powers come with grave and dangerous responsibilities.

Gwyneth West's a finalist in The Pageant, the dating competition that's gripping the settlements. Down to the final week, the dashing Prince Dallas Black will choose one young woman as his fiancee. One small issue: Gwyneth's a human and the prince is a vampire. What's worse? Gwyneth's family are sworn rebels, out to take back the settlements and overthrow the crown. What's worse than that? Gwyn's own rebel brother is a prisoner in the castle dungeons, but the king and queen don't know his true identity.

A Clue found in Book 3 sends Amy and Dan jetting off to find out just what's behind the fierce rivalry between the Tomas and Ekaterina branches of the Cahill family. Was a Clue stolen from the Tomas branch? Where is it now? And most important, can Amy and Dan get their hands on it before their rivals do? It's a wild race that will take Amy and Dan deep into the bowels of the earth... and right into the hands of the enemy.

When the plans for the prototype of a failed flying machine go missing from the Air and Space Museum's archives, Amal's father, the assistant archivist, is blamed. No one suspects a crime has been committed - except Amal and her friends. With her father's job on the line, it's up to them to track down the missing plans and get to the bottom of the museum mystery.

What do you do when the unthinkable happens? August 8, 2000: A carefree birthday party goes horribly wrong. The children scatter to play hide and seek. But one little girl never returns. Three-year-old Grace has vanished without a trace. Fourteen years later: With the case long since gone cold, Grace's family has done its best to move on. But her sister, Elise, has never given up hope. And now Elise thinks she may have found her.... Is Elise going crazy? Could Grace really have returned? And if she has, where was she taken?

The Mysterious Benedict Society is up against a new mission, significantly closer to home. After reuniting for a celebratory scavenger hunt, Reynie, Kate, Sticky, and Constance are forced to go on an unexpected search—a search to find Mr. Benedict. It seems that while he was preparing the kids' adventure, he stepped right into a trap orchestrated by his evil twin Mr. Curtain. With only one week to find a captured Mr. Benedict, the gifted foursome faces their greatest challenge of all.